Finding Focus: Monarch’s 6th Anniversary

As we quickly approach our sixth anniversary, it seems like just yesterday we were celebrating our fifth year and clinking glasses with our clients. Time is flying, and we are having fun! With each year we are gaining knowledge and wisdom about ourselves, our clients and how our little company thrives.

In our third year, we realized we needed a defined market in which to market to. We didn’t ponder it long. The association market was clearly the right fit. As owners, we both have association publishing experience, working knowledge as association staff, and we live in Austin where many associations are headquartered. Our focus on the association market has been a huge factor in Monarch’s growth — and we love helping associations with everything from their publications to their conventions!

This past year we had another moment of true clarity. You would think this would occur after a three-day reflective retreat for business owners, but it came after a rather bizarre meeting with a potential client.

You see, Monarch’s business model is unique in that we employ two different services under one roof — publication design and advertising sales. When we have the ability to marry these two services on a client’s publication, everything runs like clockwork. The processes we have honed over the years support both our services. When combined, they hum along swimmingly. The publication, and in turn our client, benefits in met deadlines, engaging design and a growing revenue stream. We know this.

So, this potential new client was going to be one of those “we need one of your services now with the option of perhaps bringing on the other service later.” We left the meeting a little disheartened knowing our business model would be divided if we took on the client. But through this, we gained something far greater — clarity. Clarity on who we are as a company and our ideal future clients. It was as if we were holding a large magnifying glass that brought it into complete focus. We simply know we do our best work as a team, and moving forward our team aims to provide its best product to clients who utilize Monarch’s complete custom publishing services.

THANK YOU to our current clients who we absolutely love working with everyday, our former clients from whom we gained great knowledge and those who have given us an opportunity to submit a project proposal that wasn’t quite the right fit. Each interaction has helped us define who we are as a company and find our focus. Year seven, here we come!